Abstract

This study is an attempt to compare and contrast D. H. Lawrence’s writings and Persian mystic poet and jurist Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi’s poetry. Particular attention is given to the theme of love in Lawrence’s writings and the degree to which his mystical views with regard to sexual love become evident in his novel, Women in Love.

Lawrence’s use of mystical language and religious symbolism has been analysed in comparison with Rumi’s mystical writings. In his writings Lawrence suggests a sacred dimension to erotic love and uses a mystical language to describe such experiences of human love and intimacy.

By comparing the salient features of Lawrence and Rumi’s writing, this thesis explores mystical dimensions of Lawrence’s novel Women in Love and asks why the theme of sexual love is shrouded with complexity of Lawrence’s rhetoric. There are four prominent features of this discussion: the first feature is the exploration of the theme of love as a consummation and attaining a singular relationship with the other. The second feature is rapture or ecstasy as a condition of sexual attraction which transforms the quality of existence in relationship with the other. The third feature of the discussion consists of a critical view of the attainment of mystic conjunction in love proposed by Birkin to Ursula. The last feature of the discussion is an analysis of Lawrence’s contrasting views on yielding or giving oneself away to the unknown in a love relationship and at the same time Lawrence insists on singleness, as the orbit image of star-equilibrium in Women in Love shows. How close this experience, which is amplified with Biblical symbolism, can be compared and contrasted with Rumi’s ecstatic love and annihilation is a prominent theme of the thesis and the sole concern of the last section.